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James Kincaid
James Christopher Kincaid (born September 6, 1997) is an English Liberal Democrat politician who is the Secretary of State for Education, serving since 2045. He was Governor of Northumberland from 2034 to 2039 when he lost re-election to Conservative Jack Sinclair, and was elected Member of Parliament for Berwick-upon-Tweed at the 2040 election. Born in Blyth, Kincaid is a graduate of Newcastle University and the Open University. In 2022 Christie worked as a lawyer in private practice before he was elected to Berwick-upon-Tweed Borough Council for the Islandshire ward, where he served from 2028 to 2034. Kincaid served as Minority Leader on the council in 2030, and Majority Leader from 2031 to his resignation in 2034. In January 2033, Kincaid filed as a candidate for Governor of Northumberland. He won the Liberal Democrat Primary with 55% of the vote, and defeated incumbent Conservative Governor Joey Swan, with 48% of the vote in the Northumberland gubernatorial election. Kincaid, who was seen as possible candidate in the 2044 Liberal Democrat leadership election but declined to run, gave the keynote address at the Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference, 2044. Some political commentators view Kincaid as a leading contender to replace James Hutchinson as leader of the Liberal Democrats in the future. Councillor Kincaid was elected to Berwick-upon-Tweed Borough Council in 2028 for the Islandshire ward alongside a Conservative candidate and a Green candidate. While a member of the council he introduced legislation to lower the voting age to 16 in Berwick-upon-Tweed Borough Council elections, as well as moving forward a motion to digitise libraries in the borough. He campaigned on many environmental causes in the borough, and unsuccesfully introduced a land value tax bill to the counci. Governorship of Northumberland As Governor of Northumberland, Kincaid; *Implemented proportional representation for elections to the Northumberland Senate. *Set a maximum class size of 25 for schools in Northumberland. *Abolished requirements for collective worship in Northumberland schools. *Required any body, including police forces, to obtain a court order in order to perform any covert surveillance of specific individuals. *Legalised marijuana in Northumberland. *Introduced legislation to treat locking of electronic devices, whether the locking of software to hardware or hardware to a service, as an anti-competitive act in Northumberland. *Secularised Northumberland's school system and scrapped plans to build for-profit academies. Secretary of State for Education As Secretary of State for Education, Kincaid has: *Abolished university tuition fees which were frozen in the previous Liberal Democrat government. *Abolished requirements for collective worship in schools. *Reinstated the Education Maintenance Allowance. *Eliminated school rankings by exam results. *Established a national media library available to all public education bodies. *Set a maximum class size of 25 for secondary education and 20 for primary education, with schools only being allowed to surpass this limit if they could prove the necessity and ability to uphold standards to Ofsted. *Allowed schools freedom of their own budgets. *Introduced entrepreneurial skills as part of the curriculum. *Introduced measures for 14-year olds who pass Maths and English GCSEs to be able to drop certain classes and take up an apprenticeship or study for A-Levels early.